Saturday, July 5, 2014

True Detective

video link to a clip

I finished watching season one a couple days ago and highly recommend it. McConnaughey and Harrelson have a magical chemistry. They're crazy if they don't go on to do movies together.

True Detective is an anthology and the next season will be a new story with three new leads, two women and a man, set in California, "not Los Angeles, but some of the much lesser known venues of California---and we're going to try to capture a certain psychosphere ambiance of the place, much like we did in season one."

19 comments:

ndspinelli said...

I liked the series, but found Mc's soliloquys tedious.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

I liked True Detective and I like these actors.

Evi L. Bloggerlady said...

They both have a touch of the bat shit crazy, but they tap into it well.

KCFleming said...

If Twin Peaks had had a sane director and a narrative arc that actually made sense, it might have looked like this.

I liked it quite a lot; the first series I've watched in 20 years. Like a bayou Silence of the Lambs.

William said...

I watched and enjoyed it, but the pay off wasn't equivalent to the build up.

deborah said...

*SPOILER, AND i MEAN IT IF YOU PLAN TO WATCH THIS*



William, the ending was asinine as far as the handling of getting the guy. Just drive up in broad daylight? Brilliant.

The guy speaking in a British accent? Contrived.

The father strapped down to the bed? Trying too hard.

Rust at the end? Gratifying and appropriate.

deborah said...

Nick, that was a big part of the whole shtick. I liked it.

I had grown weary of Mc and all his hottie boy gets girl movies. I'd never seen this side of his acting before. He nailed it. Well, except he played it sweetly serious in Contact. That's the first time I came across him.

But he and Kate Hudson in How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days was very well done, by which I mean adorable.

KCFleming said...

He spoke in several contrived accents. The whole persona was I think meant to be contrived.

deborah said...

Yeah, one was british, one scottish, but it was completely out of left field.

Oh, wait, I read in the IMDB message board that he got the ideas for his crimes from a horror story book read to him as a child...(The Yellow King?) Maybe it was a british author. Maybe he had a sort of split personality to escape from the horrors his father did to him.

KCFleming said...

I think the bad guy's complexities wer the McGuffin for the detective character exposition, the mystery later revealed as inconsequential when neither detective wanted to hear the final tally or other details.

KCFleming said...

I was reminded of Al Pacino discovering the killer in the movie Insomnia saying "You don't get it do you Finch? You're my job. You're what I'm paid to do. You're about as mysterious to me as a blocked toilet is to a fucking plumber. Reasons for doing what you did? Who gives a fuck?"

Yellow king? Accents? Whatever.

deborah said...

McGuffin...that's new to me: an object or device in a movie or a book that serves merely as a trigger for the plot.

Well, it was definitely about M and H.

I didn't catch that they weren't interested in details later...was that explicit, or do you mean it wasn't covered. They were pretty effed up in the hospital.

KCFleming said...

The two detectives who were interviewing M and H talked to Harrelson in the hospital afterward and started to tell the whole story and H just waved them off so they stopped. Said he didn't want to know. I loved that part. And M and H never again discussed what had happened in that case, which had consumed them.

It was about getting the guy, not the mystery of the Yellow King etc.

That was my take. They were just doing thir jobs, not being drawn into the minutiae.

I thought finding out the bad guy's intricate story was the McGuffin was wonderful, but others hated it.

deborah said...

Well, it's important to know the motivation of the bad guy. Part of the plot, etc. It makes me feel better about the accents.

I didn't register H waving off the two detectives. Must have been too worried about M :)

Bromance of the decade, baby.

chickelit said...

deborah said...
Well, it's important to know the motivation of the bad guy.

That's what I liked about Dexter.

Bromance of the decade, baby.

The DVD comes with lots of extras including candid discussions with the two together. You're right.

deborah said...

Never watched Dexter.

I'll see if I can find that DVD.

chickelit said...

The first season of Dexter is outstanding. It is soul-corrupting though. The send season was good too but there were a couple dips in there. It ends poorly.

deborah said...

Yeah, that's why I never delved into Dexter.

So, over all did you like TD?

chickelit said...

Yes. I wish there were more episodes with those two.